Seder lesson from the hostage families - opinion

• Published date: 21 April 2024
• Author: MOSHE HAUER
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Everything you have taught us over these six torturous months can be summarized in a biblical phrase: Vayima'ein l'hitnacheim – "He refused to be consoled." You dedicate every moment to advocating, traveling, and speaking on behalf of your captive loved ones, putting your own lives on hold. You have demonstrated what true commitment to family looks like. It is a lesson we badly needed, and we hope we have begun to learn it

Your dedication to your loved ones has inspired an outstanding wave of love and dedication within the Jewish family and beyond. In a world of unspeakable cruelty, you are symbols of compassion. At a time when our nation was on the verge of self-destruction over its internal differences, you reminded us of the core principle of enduring brotherhood. You will be on our minds and our lips this Passover as we gather with our diverse families, all four sons, to remind ourselves of who we are, our shared past, and our common destiny.

We will think of you when we perform the seder's very first distinctive act, the dipping of the karpas vegetable into salt water. Rabbi Eliezer Ashkenazy, in the 16th century, suggested that this dipping is performed at the beginning of the seder as a reminder that the immediate cause of our exile in Egypt, the very beginning of the Passover story, was the sale of Yosef (Joseph) into slavery by his jealous brothers. While the brothers harbored no love for Yosef, they had to address their father's attachment to him, and so they took his multicolored cloak, dipped it into the blood of a goat, and presented it to their father as evidence of Yosef's apparent death. They thought this would work – that Yaakov (Jacob) would see it, grieve, and then move on. They were wrong. Vayima'ein l'hitnacheim – "He refused to be consoled." Days would turn into weeks, months, and years, and Yaakov continued to grieve because family is forever.

The brothers, in their betrayal of Yosef, had tried to walk away and not look back but they couldn't. Yaakov's unremitting grief taught them what an enduring relationship means and led them to use the opportunity of the famine to search for Yosef in Egypt. Long before the appearance of Moshe (Moses) and of frogs jumping everywhere, Yosef's choice to embrace his brothers and prefer an enduring relationship over resentment and revenge constituted the first stage of our redemption in Egypt.

From betrayal to loyalty

That redemption would culminate when each family would dip into the blood of the...